Digital Democracy: E-Voting for everyone?
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Formal Metadata
| Title |
| |
| Title of Series | ||
| Number of Parts | 234 | |
| Author | ||
| License | CC Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Germany: You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor and the work or content is shared also in adapted form only under the conditions of this | |
| Identifiers | 10.5446/32970 (DOI) | |
| Publisher | ||
| Release Date | ||
| Language |
Content Metadata
| Subject Area | ||
| Genre | ||
| Abstract |
|
00:00
AngleGroup actionVirtual machinePhysical system9 (number)Multiplication signVotingPosition operatorOffice suiteForm (programming)MereologyStaff (military)WordArithmetic meanPerspective (visual)Point (geometry)Mixed realityBitSelectivity (electronic)Expert systemRemote procedure callElektronische WahlUsabilityWebsiteInterior (topology)Task (computing)InternetworkingComputer virusLevel (video gaming)2 (number)Mechanism designInternet service providerDigitizingDisk read-and-write headComputer animationJSONXMLUMLLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
05:16
ArmLevel (video gaming)Bookmark (World Wide Web)VotingPhysical systemPoint (geometry)FrequencyMoment (mathematics)Electronic GovernmentSystem identificationTelecommunicationMeeting/Interview
06:37
Integrated development environmentSystem identificationMereologySocial classRoundness (object)Endliche ModelltheorieRevision controlE-textSpiralIterationWorkstation <Musikinstrument>AdditionVotingDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Electronic GovernmentElektronische WahlParameter (computer programming)Computer programmingInformation securityPower (physics)Internet forumInternetworkingLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
09:17
InternetworkingVotingElektronische WahlDifferent (Kate Ryan album)BitSimilarity (geometry)AreaMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
10:10
VotingElektronische WahlArmGoodness of fitArithmetic meanWritingWorkstation <Musikinstrument>Category of beingLevel (video gaming)Cellular automatonProcess (computing)Right angleStudent's t-testAreaMultiplication signWordQuicksortPhysical systemInternetworkingBitMeeting/Interview
13:09
Information securityService (economics)Physical systemInterface (computing)INTEGRALKeyboard shortcutDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Universe (mathematics)ResultantInformation privacySelf-organizationInternet service providerVoltmeterPerspective (visual)Formal verificationLatent heatFamilyCASE <Informatik>VotingInternetworkingNP-hardElektronische WahlComputing platformLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
16:33
WebsiteSoftwareService (economics)Process (computing)Server (computing)ResultantView (database)Right angleComputing platformMalwareClient (computing)Hacker (term)Independence (probability theory)Arithmetic meanMathematicsDenial-of-service attackFunction (mathematics)Physical systemComputer animationMeeting/Interview
17:53
State observerInformation securityElektronische Wahl2 (number)Arithmetic meanLevel (video gaming)Information privacyCryptographyAlgorithmSoftwareVotingResultantPhysical systemRule of inferenceData miningMathematicsINTEGRALLecture/Conference
19:07
Arithmetic progressionWhiteboardVarianceSoftware developerComputer scienceObservational studyIndependence (probability theory)WordArmVotingRule of inferenceVirtual machineNeuroinformatikInternetworkingSoftwareCountingParameter (computer programming)Computing platformResultantBackdoor (computing)Normal (geometry)DigitizingPixelMusical ensembleProcess (computing)Meeting/Interview
21:21
Virtual machineClient (computing)VotingSoftwareProcess (computing)Elektronische WahlFormal verificationComputer programmingResultantPhysical systemRoundness (object)Statement (computer science)Source codeNeuroinformatikLine (geometry)EncryptionMoment (mathematics)Rule of inferenceTelecommunicationBitRight angleWeb browserCasting (performing arts)GenderCAN busPersonal identification numberDemosceneMeeting/Interview
24:06
Elektronische WahlTwitterTask (computing)Set (mathematics)WordDivisorMessage passingProduct (business)Different (Kate Ryan album)Electronic GovernmentEmailForm (programming)Observational studyToken ringWorkstation <Musikinstrument>MeasurementContext awarenessBitSoftware testingVotingPhysical systemCASE <Informatik>InternetworkingMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
27:05
BitArchaeological field surveyQuicksortElektronische WahlFlagCountingFormal verificationPhysical systemVotingInternetworkingMereologyCodierung <Programmierung>Office suiteElectric generatorScaling (geometry)State of matterDirection (geometry)Cellular automatonMultiplication signACIDRegulator geneChainMeeting/Interview
29:46
Voting1 (number)Order (biology)BuildingPhysical systemObject (grammar)Point (geometry)Local ringSelf-organizationNumberWhiteboardProcess (computing)ResultantScaling (geometry)Complete metric spaceError messageInformation securityLevel (video gaming)Greatest elementSigma-algebraState of matterCryptographyMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
33:39
Student's t-testPhysical lawBitFormal verificationModal logicRoundness (object)Insertion lossAddress spacePhysical systemMassMeeting/Interview
34:28
VotingWeightModal logicChemical equationAreaPhysical lawInternetworkingCybersexBitRight angleElektronische WahlLecture/Conference
35:42
Duality (mathematics)NeuroinformatikPhysical systemMultiplication signBitLecture/Conference
36:37
Computer virusDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Information securityFrequencyInstance (computer science)Electronic mailing listFlow separationComputing platformPhysical systemRoundness (object)Lecture/Conference
37:25
Roundness (object)Link (knot theory)Level (video gaming)Physical systemGroup actionVotingQuicksortElektronische WahlLecture/Conference
38:50
Group actionAddress spacePhysical systemRight angleVotingFormal verificationVapor barrierDirection (geometry)DivisorSource codeOrder (biology)Elektronische WahlState of matterIntegrated development environmentLatent heatNumberCybersexCASE <Informatik>Lecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
42:02
BuildingInclusion mapInternetworkingVotingElectronic mailing listNormal (geometry)Physical systemAddress spaceFrequencyMultiplication signType theoryLevel (video gaming)Computer configurationTable (information)Perspective (visual)StatisticsWorkstation <Musikinstrument>EmailMobile WebTouchscreenElektronische WahlSummierbarkeitService (economics)AuthorizationTerm (mathematics)Student's t-testMereologyOrder (biology)Process (computing)Office suiteSystem administratorOptical disc driveMeeting/Interview
45:52
TelecommunicationOrder (biology)MeasurementVotingDoubling the cubeMereologyInformation securityLevel (video gaming)Axiom of choiceElektronische WahlPhysical systemStandard deviationResultantBitExpert systemGoodness of fitDiscrepancy theoryMechanism designProcedural programmingFormal verificationDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Graph (mathematics)Modal logicRow (database)Sampling (statistics)Lattice (order)Observational studyMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
48:20
DistanceComputer configurationHypermediaElektronische WahlLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
49:09
State of matterVotingPhysical systemVirtual machineStandard deviationUsabilitySign (mathematics)Elektronische WahlNumberDuality (mathematics)Multiplication signOrder (biology)Letterpress printingCountingCurveLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
52:26
Connectivity (graph theory)ChainClosed setWordDatabase transactionFormal verificationMultiplication signPhysical systemVotingNumberDigitizingLecture/Conference
53:16
WordModal logicContext awarenessConnectivity (graph theory)Physical systemNumberVotingElektronische WahlAffine spaceState of matterMobile WebSet (mathematics)Student's t-testGame controllerExpert systemElectronic mailing listQuicksortMultiplication signFunction (mathematics)DivisorError messagePoint (geometry)InternetworkingLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
55:01
WordMoment (mathematics)Physical systemElektronische WahlElement (mathematics)VotingDigitizingSemiconductor memoryMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
56:15
Multiplication signRule of inferenceLecture/ConferenceComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:25
Okay, this one works, great. Okay, so first of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here in Berlin, which is always great to come back to the German capital. What we're going to talk about is actually a topic that seems quite current,
00:42
but actually it's a topic that has been discussed in one way or the other over the past 150 years, and that is about how we can make use of electric or electronic technology to make participation possible in digital means. What I mean by that is actually how can we record votes in an electronic way,
01:04
and we have collected a quite nice panel together, so I'm a professor in Estonia, but originally I'm from Austria and I've been dealing with the topic over the past 20 years, but there are even more distinguished colleagues here that know more about the topic that will introduce themselves in a little bit,
01:21
but first I will say Preet Winke, who is the chief of staff of the Estonian Election Committee. We have Tomasz Truderow from Polias, an internet voting provider here in Germany, and we have Henning Tillman, who is also working on the topic from a more broader perspective,
01:41
and we have Stephanie Plante here in the background of us being connected to us from Ottawa in Canada, who unfortunately couldn't travel to be here, but even more so great that we can have her by using the technological possibilities. Hello. Hi. So before we go into sharing
02:00
all of your experiences and positions, why are we talking about the topic today? In Germany, the use of technology in election has been quite a frequent topic. Already during the Second World War, first ideas about using mechanical machines appeared, and in the 1960s, the system Darmstadt
02:21
was actually used as a mechanical device to count votes, and in the 90s, we even used electronic voting machines, which then at a later stage were abandoned by the Constitutional Court of Germany because of the reason that there should be a publicity to the election. I'm sure we will hear more about that in a bit.
02:40
Nevertheless, back then, German Minister of Interior Otto Schiele said in 2001, maybe in 2010, we will have the Bundestag elections using the internet. However, we are seven years later, and there are obviously some issues that haven't been resolved by now, and there was a race in the 2000s
03:01
that actually was won by Estonia, and without any given due, I would like to ask Prit Vinkler to give us a short overview about the experiences that Estonia could collect with internet voting. Yes, hello. Really quickly, some words about Estonia, about the Estonian experience, what we have had for some years already,
03:23
but first of all, I'm head of the Estonian National Electoral Office that's responsible for organizing all elections in Estonia, and have been with elections for some time already, beginning 2005,
03:41
with already the first elections that we had at that point. For my professional vocation, it's actually I'm a political scientist by profession, so I'm going to talk a bit more from the social science side, from the organizational, from the even political side of instant voting as such,
04:01
but we have also technical experts here on the panel today. So, as already said, the Estonian star seat, their first internet elections or remote voting by using internet means in 2005, that those were local elections, and from that point on, from that 2005 election on,
04:23
we have had eight elections, eight consecutive elections, and in all of those elections, instant voting has been one part of, and that has been now 10 years, and then this year, in October, the ninth e-enabled election will take place in Estonia.
04:41
Estonia is a rather small country, you might know. We are just a bit more than one million inhabitants, 1.3 million people living in Estonia. Those people who can vote in several elections are about a million people, and for Estonians, it has always been
05:01
really, really important to catch every vote, to get every voter to take part in that possibility, to take their civic duty, so to say, and in that mood, throughout the years, we have always had features for that. We have quite a long voting period.
05:21
At the moment, it ranges from one week before the election day, even before, 10 days before election day, already starting, and then ending on election Sunday, so for a 10-day period, it's possible to vote, and during that period, on a seven-day period, it is possible to vote electronically,
05:41
but all other paper voting, traditional paper voting possibilities remain. They stay the same. So at this point, when we look at the last elections we had in 2015, the parliamentary elections, one-third of all votes were given electronically, and two-thirds on paper,
06:01
so we see it has evened out at that point that approximately 30% of the votes came in electronically. Why Estonia? Estonia is a country that chose, on a rather early stage, to have a quite large, encompassing e-governmental system
06:25
that is based on the e-ID infrastructure. Everybody in Estonia has an e-ID, or e-ID-capable identification in their pockets, so everybody is able to identify themselves
06:43
in the online environment securely and trustworthy, and that's the main argument, the main reason why, in the very beginning, that program was started, that we have lots of e-governmental solutions, lots of different possibilities for the citizen
07:02
to actually communicate with the government via the e-channels, and internet voting is just one additional, one beside all the other, e-tax declarations, or e-banking, as such, or e-signatures, or different, different possibilities that the e-ID infrastructure can be used.
07:22
What were the reasons in the very beginning why actually we opted for such a possibility? Of course, not only in Estonia, but elsewhere, the turnout question, whether we should raise the turnout, whether the turnout should at least stay the same, and that was also raised in the very beginning,
07:40
but throughout the years, what we have seen, what have actually scientists seen during these 10 years we have had now in internet voting, is that the impact on turnout is there, it's not too strong. The impact on turnout is around 5%, or a bit less, but there is a moderate turnout impact there.
08:04
But where it has impact is the comfortability, it is a voting duty, or a possibility made easier for the voter to take part in. Of course, it's also easier,
08:21
the comfortability comes into play when voting abroad, voting from somewhere really, really far away from the possibilities. It used to be you had to go to the embassy, or to postal voting, two embassies, and of course, for those people who have disabilities, for example, for visually impaired people,
08:42
for moving impaired people, for those people it provides huge avenues for taking part in elections. What have scientists found out, actually, is that if going to the polling station and back takes more than 30 minutes, then the chance of using internet voting skyrockets,
09:02
that this 30 minute round trip, so to say, to the polling station is a really, really important feature. What the scientists have also found out that internet vote is a really, really sticky voting method. Once you use, you keep using it, and you don't revert back to paper voting,
09:21
although a lot, if not most, of internet voters are actually former paper voters. Paper voters opted for another possibility that's more comfortable for them, but if, for example, internet voting would be abolished in Estonia, most likely they would not revert back to paper voting.
09:42
Preet, thank you for this interesting insight, and I turn right to Stephanie. Stephanie, could you also share a bit of your Canadian experience? Do you see something similar, like the 30 minutes that make a difference whether you internet vote or not? Can you hear me? Just wanna confirm. We can hear you, yes.
10:00
Oh, perfect, okay. So I just wanted to start by thanking you guys for allowing me to participate today via Skype. I know sometimes there's some technological difficulties, but everything seems to be going well, and we really appreciate the opportunity. And I also wanted to thank Nicole Goodman, who's really the architect behind all of this research. She really is a superstar. I'm just the mason
10:21
trying to put everything together for her. And what we find in Canada is, so as you know, Canada's a bit like Germany, and we have a lot of levels of government. We have a federal level, provincial level, municipal level, and we have another layer of indigenous governance. And so what we find is the uptick in internet voting
10:41
is really happening at the local level, at the municipal level, at the indigenous level. And there hasn't been the same sort of enthusiasm that Preet was talking about at the provincial or the federal level. In Canada, we recently probably for a good chunk of 2016 had a big electoral modernization committee
11:03
that was formed. You guys may have heard about it. They talked about possibly getting rid of our first-past-the-post system and modernizing other aspects of our electoral process. Preet actually came to Canada for a big conference we held on this. And there was some discussion about using internet voting
11:21
for what they call special populations. So people in the military, expats, students who are away at school, people who would normally have to use the mail-in ballot or who would not be at home for polling day. The other aspect too was the disability aspect, which he also touched upon in people who are either homebound or it's very difficult for them
11:42
to get to a polling station. And also too for people who, as you know, Canada is quite big and we have some ridings, which is how you elect your member of parliament via your riding. We have some ridings that are the size of Switzerland. We have ridings that are sizes of small European countries. So for people to leave their home
12:01
and like he talked about the 30 minutes to drive the 40 minutes to their polling station, it's quite cumbersome for them, but we do have good broadband in Canada. So the idea of internet voting was very popular for those people. But again, we have not seen, there's various reasons for this, which I can get into later, but at the provincial and federal level, there just hasn't been the same sort of cheerleading
12:21
for internet voting that we've seen at the municipal and at the indigenous level. But at the indigenous and municipal level, every time there's municipal elections in the province of Ontario, we see more and more municipalities adopting this. In Ontario where I live, it's a big sort of cottage country area. And so in some of the municipalities
12:42
where they have a lot of people who have cottages, they've really taken up internet voting because people live in the big city, but they have a right to vote because they own property in the cottage areas. And so those municipalities have taken up internet voting with great enthusiasm. Thanks, Stephanie, for that account from Canada.
13:01
So it seems somehow the less densely populated areas are really supporting this on that. So with that take, Thomas, could you maybe highlight a little bit to us on technical possibilities for internet voting? Hello, it's great to be here. So yes, I want to add to this discussion more technical perspective.
13:21
It's about how to achieve this, the promises of electronic voting. We know, well, we've heard, it's convenient, it's useful. Now the thing is how to provide the technology that really provides solid solutions for this. But first, maybe shortly by myself. So my name is Thomas Truderung. I'm from Polyas.
13:42
And Polyas is an e-voting company located in this very city of Berlin. So it's very nice to be here. Our mission is to bring voting technologies, to bring working e-voting solutions to our customers, ranging from public and private organizations
14:00
like universities, political parties, like cooperative banks, and many, many different, with the ambition also to reach to legally binding political public elections. And in my group, what we are doing in particular, we focus on one very critical aspect of e-voting,
14:22
which is security. And when we talk about security, electronic voting, especially online voting, when people cast their ballots over the internet, all the threats that any possible internet-based system faces apply also to our case.
14:43
And on top of that, we also have very specific security policies that are required. And we, and this reasonable electronic voting system has to provide ballot privacy, and also has to provide what we call integrity. We want to be sure that the election
15:02
was counted correctly, that the result is correct. And this integrity in the face of all those different threats is something really critical and crucial to achieve. And it's not only that we know that our system is well-constructed, it's also about convincing everybody
15:22
that the result is correct. It's not about trusting the voting provider. So typically, in e-voting, what we're saying is, we need to provide some kind of evidence so that there is no doubt, there are no doubts that the result is correct. And we could, for example, think that if we are able to provide an evidence
15:40
which is compelling to the losing party, to the loser, that he lost fairly, then this is the amount of verifiability, of integrity we really aim at. And what it seems to be completely clear is that we cannot achieve this amount of security
16:04
just treating e-voting just an regular service. We need to reach for some special techniques, and it's definitely clear for us right now that we need strong cryptographic technique, which are non-trivial,
16:21
which are developed in the recent years. And maybe to give you some glimpse into the way we're thinking about security, we have all those threats like, for example, the voter client's platform can be hacked, can have some malicious software, right? Then the server side can be hacked.
16:42
Maybe some adversary hacked into the server and maybe modify the software on it. There is a DDoS attacks possible, and so on and so on. And let me focus on one thing. If we assume that we cannot really rule out completely that the servers of the election committee are hacked into,
17:04
so then the hacker can maybe modify the counting software, right? Can maybe replace it by something else, and how then can we trust the result of election in this situation, yes? It seems to be completely crazy to trust this result. So one completely awesome notion we often use
17:23
is so-called software independence, which essentially means that if somebody hacked into our system and modified the software, and this cannot be noticed, it means that the result cannot be changed. This is maybe not so easy, so I will rephrase it.
17:41
If somebody modified our software, we may have only two kinds of outputs. Either this modification is completely neutral, meaning it doesn't change anything essential, the result is still correct, or the second outcome is, well, it's not neutral, but then we can notice it.
18:01
And not only we, it's kind of publicly noticeable. We have some means, some techniques that an observer may be running completely independently developed software based on publicly known algorithms can detect any manipulation which is critical, meaning which may change the election.
18:21
So this is the kind of mindset we are having. And for this, we reach to new research to whatever current cryptography can provide, and our goal is to combine those into a system that provides these kind of things. This kind of high levels of security
18:41
without revealing anything about how voters vote, so like keeping the privacy of ballot. So Thomas, thanks for trying to explain the issue of having secret elections while still preserving integrity, which is really crucial and quite difficult. And maybe I'm turning now to Henning.
19:00
How do you see that? I mean, the internet voting has been debated quite critically in the public, and latest, of course, also the Constitutional Court ruling was giving further a notion to that. So what problems do you see with internet voting? Yeah, first of all, hello, my name is Henning Thelmann. I study computer science, and during my study, I was very interested in voting machines,
19:22
and now I'm an independent software developer, and I'm a board member of D64, Center for Digital Progress, which is a German NGO. So, well, the main thing about this debate is trust. Trust in democracy, trust in voting machines,
19:44
and trust in everything that's happening with the government and election and parliament and so on. So I'm a very pro-technical digital guy, so if we can have a digital tool for something, I'm all for it, normally.
20:02
I'm very open for digital platforms that try to get opinions on whether people are for something, or are they like, do you like pizza or do you like cheeseburgers, and you can vote for something, and you can retrace that, whether you voted for cheeseburgers or you voted for pizzas.
20:20
But it's getting more and more complicated when it's secret votes. So how do you know that the counting within the machine was correct? You said you can find that out. I would like to know how. Maybe we can talk about that later. And the federal court in, the federal constitutional court in Germany
20:41
ruled that the main subject or the main argument for not allowing voting machines in Germany is that everybody has to be able to recount what has been done during the voting process. That means everybody without any knowledge,
21:00
you have to count, that's the only thing you have to do, but can take the sheets of paper and count and count and count and see whether the result was correct. And I think that's one very important issue when it comes to trust. When it comes to not being something that is only for professional people
21:22
that can deal with, maybe, I don't know, source codes that can deal with computer programs at all, that everybody can do it. Everybody can go to the, can afterwards say, I don't trust whether the results are okay. Let's recount that. And talking about manipulation
21:43
and the opportunities for the bad guys to do something, I trust that you and other companies try to make the best voting machines or online voting systems as possible. I don't think that this is something, this is a bad idea to do something like that.
22:01
But you can't rule out, as you said, client attacks. Attacks on, everybody has read a lot of things about computers being infected and your system works on the browser, right? You don't need a special software.
22:21
So this is no verification within the system itself on the client side. But there's also a problem, when you use software clients or no software clients, only the browser, you cannot use end-to-end encryption and all these things that can make the process of voting
22:45
or the process of communication a bit more safer. So all in all, I think it's okay to use such systems in small ways. If you've got a club and you wanna elect whether you're, who's your next chairman in the club, it's totally fine to do that if you wanna do that.
23:01
But when it comes to general public elections, when it comes to topics that the whole public is so skeptical at the moment and will be probably the next few years, why are we trying to make it even more untrustworthy?
23:24
Although I trust them that they make good software, but I don't think that's like, I don't know. In Germany, it isn't like United States or other countries, we have to stand in line for an hour to cast your ballot. I mean, you go out there, as you said, it's like 20 minute, go out there, cast your vote,
23:41
go home, it's a social experience as well. So voting is not only like casting your ballot, it's also a social experience by casting your ballot, by counting and by reporting. So I think that for general public elections, it should be pen and paper. Thanks, Henning, for the statement and already going towards the second round
24:02
and setting the scene for that. So how do you see the role in Germany out of your personal perspective? But before we do that, I would like you to think of some questions because then we'll open the floor. You can in the meanwhile, so you don't forget it, tweet it with the hashtag Polias and then we'll also have an account of that and we might be able to take them also in the very end collectively.
24:22
But think of a question already. So now I turn to Preet. How do you see the role of internet voting in Germany out of the Estonian experience? Yes, it's always a difficult task to actually compare something that is not comparable because what we have always said throughout the years
24:45
is that you can't take internet voting out separately from the rest of the e-governmental system, from the context it is in and from all the tokens and the infrastructure it is in. And the key word here is trust, as Henning said.
25:03
Trust is the most important factor for the voter actually deciding whether he or she uses internet voting or goes to the polling station. And that has been also confirmed by studies that you don't build the trust
25:20
simply by offering such a novelty idea, but you build the trust throughout all the e-governmental solutions, through all of the infrastructure there is. So that's where our message has been from the Estonian side, always has been, that it should not be copied straight away
25:44
from our side to any other country. Always, the context should be taken into account and the same should apply also in the German case. Although I think really recently Germany opted for compulsory ID documents.
26:02
So I think this is a really step forward to building these basic groundwork in having a broader understanding of trustworthy authentication, for example, in the online world. So I think it can be done what also Switzerland shows
26:24
or the Swiss cantons that actually use the system show, that it can be done. What Canada shows, what Stephanie talked about, and Australia, it used to be also in a bit different form also in France, for example.
26:41
In every country, it's totally different. Different solutions, different understanding what secrecy is, even what can be trusted, what cannot be trusted. So we can't take the same measures working in Estonia and put them to test here in Germany.
27:01
So Germany has to find its own way. Stephanie, what can Canada give Germany onto the way? Well, I just wanted to backtrack a bit and talk. When Henning was talking about sort of the social aspect of elections and a lot of the surveys we've done, it shows that the people who are most likely to use internet voting are actually quite older.
27:22
They're 45 plus, they're very well established in their careers. And they sort of see internet voting as something they do online, along with their online banking and they're booking their children's soccer league. And it's part of the administrative paperwork of essentially being an adult. And we find with the younger generation,
27:42
sort of the millennials, they actually really do enjoy the aspect of going to the polls and casting their ballot and taking a selfie outside and hashtag I voted. Yesterday we had elections, provincial elections in the province of British Columbia, and they had these adorable little stickers you could get once you voted that said, I voted with a British Columbia flag.
28:00
And it was hugely popular if you guys look for the hashtag online. So I just wanted to sort of confirm what at least in Canada, it is the same idea that voting is a bit of an experience and people come and they watch the people cast their ballot, like count the ballots afterwards. And there's also this aspect which we have in Canada
28:22
called the chain of command. So you have to be able to buy government regulations, keep electoral documents for seven years. So you can go back at any time, recount the ballots if there's any sort of problems. So people sort of like the idea that there is some way of verification with a paper aspect.
28:43
But also too, just to answer your question, when I was talking a bit about the lower the stakes, the greater use there is of internet voting, what we see in Canada too, is there's been a big uptick in use of internet voting for leadership contests. So right now our conservative party here in Canada
29:01
is doing a big leadership contest and they will be using online voting to elect the next leader of the conservative party. So it's sort of the lower the stakes we have in the election, the more likely they are to use internet voting, which is probably why we see it on a much smaller scale, but it does provide a lot of innovation in the sense that a lot of indigenous communities
29:22
are sort of creating their own methodology for how their off reserve populations votes. A lot of the municipalities are designing sort of their own verification systems. I'm sure Henning can talk more about this than I can, but on the technological side, we really do see a lot of the innovation coming from the smaller electoral elections.
29:46
So Thomas, do you see a spillover actually from the nonpolitical elections and the features that internet voting provides there also to political ones in Germany? Well, yes, I think that this will come. What I think, Germany, the sentiments in Germany
30:03
when it comes to voting are very much on the conservative side, right? And I think that it's actually not so bad. I think that indeed many of the objections that Henning voiced are completely legitimate and we need to address them, we need to discuss them.
30:21
I believe that I will be able even today maybe to address some number of these objections we could sit for five hours and probably I will be able to convince you in some points but also I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to convince you in all the points and there will be some that we are, I believe, not quite ready when it comes to the highest level political elections
30:41
when we may think about some state-level actors involved that would like to interfere in the elections. I think there's some where we have to do. So I think that a good way, the way I see in order to introduce e-voting on a broader scale is this kind of bottom-up approach
31:02
when we get accustomed to the technology, when we explain how it works, when we explain what is the strong point, strong points of the technology and when we also discuss the weak points and how we need to simply understand the risks. We cannot pretend that they don't exist and then we need to do our homework and try to solve the problems.
31:22
So I think that indeed starting from lower-stake elections, educating people about cryptography, explaining people how it works and why we can trust and what is trust, was not trusted, that's the way. So we need to take maybe small but well-thought-through steps.
31:42
So, Heming, what do you think of this building step-by-step experience? It's difficult because, yeah, of course, as I said, you can do it within your club or within your organization that you have. It's always, you have to compare it whether you want convenience
32:00
or you wanna have like security and trust, complete trust in what has happened. I'll give you an example. The Social Democratic Party has tried to use voting systems for their party, what is it named? Party, party gatherings, yes.
32:24
And they used it in 2011, 2013 and 2015. And they used that for voting their board members and the chairman. And in 2015, they tried to use that system and it turned out that there were more votes collected than people in the room.
32:42
And how could that happen? So maybe it was an error in the system or there was someone trying to attack the system, we don't know. And the problem that was talked about later was like were the results in 2011, 2013 legit? Who knows? So there's no paper to recount the steps.
33:01
So was Sigmar Gabriel when he was voted chairman? Was the voting process legit? We don't know. And if it's like your local small football club where you vote the chairman of the football club and nobody can, maybe some people living somewhere else and try to catch the ballot when they're absent a ballot,
33:24
we can talk about using online systems. It's not that bad if something goes wrong. But when it comes to parties, when it comes to democracy, when it comes to parliaments, I'm very skeptical whether we should take that risk. Yeah, so. Thanks, Henning. And I'm sure that raised already quite some questions
33:42
with you in the audience, probably also around the topics of verifiability that try to answer some of those questions. So please, just raise your hand and maybe you say also a little bit about yourself and then to whom you address this question, yeah?
34:02
Or to all. My name is Daniel Brandauer, I'm a law student and I'll just address it to the round, I guess. Well, my question is, why is there a necessity for it? In Germany, for example. I mean, on one side, talking about Talin, back in 2007, you were massively hacked
34:21
and it almost crippled your entire system. So I mean, that gave way to the Talin manual and how public law is supplyable to cyber warfare, et cetera. In Canada, I don't know how, I guess that in not so densely populated areas,
34:43
it may, in fact, have a sense to bring e-voting in, but in Germany, I don't know, we have pre-file postal voting. You can go online, click on it, you get your ballots and yeah, you fill it out and it's okay. And on the other side, I don't know,
35:01
like from the engineering side, it sounds a bit like the Titanic, you know, like nothing's gonna happen. I mean, and yeah, we know what happens. And yeah, why is there a necessity for it? You know, like really, I mean, yeah, of course you need to make money and but that's the only real thing
35:21
that comes to my mind right now. So why is there a necessity for Germany? Why? So let's collect two, three more questions. I think the question for the need and for a needs-based approach is very important. Thank you. My name's Daria. I'm from Lode, which is also an internet policy NGO
35:43
similar to D64. I also have a question to all of you. I'm also a Russian citizen and when I go to vote in the embassy here in Berlin, they have a kind of dual system. So I cast my ballot on a computer
36:01
and then they print out a little bit of paper. So I think apart from that, I don't trust the Russian system in general. I think that's kind of, you know, making it easier to count, but also there's some kind of accountability. So if I wanted to, I could go back and see how many times the name was printed on a piece of paper that I voted for.
36:22
So my question is to you, maybe some kind of dual system, would that be sufficient, do you think? And to the others, do you know of those kind of systems maybe that could also work here? Of course, is there one more question?
36:41
Maybe we can, yeah, please. Yeah, hello. Then over there. My name is Gregor Konsak. I work for an online debate platform, Kialo, where you actually could debate whether you eat cheeseburger or not. I lived several years abroad in Korea and I always had problems voting for German elections.
37:01
So it strikes me as somewhat useful in certain instances, but I wonder about the security, of course, and that's why I would wonder about different systems and different technology behind it and whether we have some experience in Estonia or in Canada that points to why some system is superior than the other
37:21
and in what aspects the crucial questions are. Okay, so then let's take the last question for this round and then we'll do another round of questions. Hello, I'm Esther. I have a question and also a comment. I mean, I think there is some sort of need to,
37:41
not necessarily to introduce e-voting, but to do something because the system doesn't work very well, right? Not many people, I mean, it depends on the election, but usually the percentage is rather low of people voting. And so there is this question who is actually participating in democracy and who is shaping this
38:00
and also the issue of trust that you mentioned. I mean, it's really a thing that needs to be addressed that so many people are so skeptical about it. And I mean, I don't know if e-voting is a way to do it, but there is a need to do something about the system, I think. So there is actually a question for those who have already experience with it
38:22
also on a local level. Do you see that you can reach out to new groups or younger people or are people with, I mean, also those who are formerly more, for whom it was more difficult, disabled people or people in rural areas,
38:41
is it a way to include those? Because if it is possible, I mean, I think that there is a, then we can say that there is a need and there's something really good about it. Okay, thank you very much for this question. So we have raised the question about why would you actually need it or what can it address and is it actually useful for Germany? Then there was a question about if there is a possibility for an individual verifiability,
39:04
they can check that what you have voted for and what was recorded by the system matches what you have in your mind, if that would be something that establishes trust. And then we had the question about the possibilities to engage voters abroad, right? So maybe we'll just do another tour and everybody addresses what they feel like addressing.
39:23
Yeah, really quickly, some things have already been also addressed that, starting from the end, that those groups that have been disenfranchised before, specifically because of the barriers that exist,
39:42
people with disabilities, people who are too or live too far from our scarcely populated areas, they benefit from that. People living abroad, living in the United States, for example, where you are on the West Coast and the only embassy in our case is on the East Coast
40:01
and in order to vote, you have to go there and postal voting is also not an option for you. That for sure has brought the numbers up. From the Estonian experience, what we have seen, unfortunately, internet voting alone is not the sole purpose that the people will turn out.
40:24
That those people who actually vote electronically are former paper voters, sure voters, so to say. Those in between, the swamp, so to say, who sometimes vote, sometimes not, they tend to vote more because it's easier, more convenient, less barriers for them.
40:42
But those who formerly did not vote also don't vote with internet voting because they need other incentives. They need other reasons, they need better policy, better candidates, some other reasons to come out and you don't solve this alienation
41:00
with a silver bullet called an internet vote. It simply does not work in that way. And really, really quickly about the technical issues, yes, in 2007, a month after we had internet voting and for totally other reasons, there was a massive state, well, it's said it's state organized, the state actor involved in those cyber attacks
41:25
and that motivated us even more to make more or to be better prepared for things to come and that's also a really important factor to understand that you don't sit on the laurels from the beginning. We change the system before every election,
41:41
after every election, we try to be on the same foot with all the risks and possibilities that come from the environment. So to be ready for the possibilities that there are. But if something happens, we have paper voting. People can revert back to.
42:02
Okay, Stephanie, can you say maybe something about the inclusion aspects of internet voting? Yeah, when I was listening to the questions, they were just from a Canadian perspective. So politics in Canada is pretty young if I dare say so.
42:21
And we don't have the history like they do in Germany of the postal service. As some of you know, I'm half Swiss as well. So when I vote online in Swiss elections, I do so by internet because it's just easier for me. I live here in Canada. But in the past, I did postal voting because in Germany and in Switzerland, the postal service is quite robust. You can get a mortgage through the postal company,
42:42
you can buy a cell phone at your local postal station. Whereas we don't have that same, I don't wanna say trust, but it's not uncommon for you in Canada to send a package and it doesn't end up at its destination for four weeks. So we've had to find more, the idea of using different methods to vote for people who cannot physically go to a polling station
43:02
on election day has increased in the last 10 years. And I can't speak on statistics in other countries, but maybe Preet can touch upon this. But in Canada, we have a huge uptick of voters who are voting in the pre-election period. So advanced polls have seen an increase in every election,
43:20
municipal, provincial, federal. More people are taking advantage of that. So from a Canadian perspective, the idea of giving people more options to vote in the pre-election period, whether it is by mail, by internet, going to your local returning office to vote in the pre-election period, that's very, very appealing to Canadians. Our lives are just getting busier
43:41
and we just like to have more options on the table. And I know for people like the disability community in Canada has been very, very vocal about using internet voting as a way and wish to enfranchise people who either can't leave their home or they just don't feel comfortable with the aspect of having to go behind a voting screen
44:01
and needing someone to help them vote or needing a third person to mark their ballot. They really value the idea of the secrecy of their vote and empowering disabled people, whether they are blind or they have some mobility issues to just vote behind the screen for themselves. I used to do election administration
44:21
and I've gone several times to old age homes where we have mobile voting and it's an issue of, I wanna say embarrassing, but they're quite uncomfortable with the idea that someone has to sit there and mark their ballot for them. So for us, it's just a way in which we can make people
44:41
feel like they are part of the process and giving them additional resources to do so. But I just wanted to quickly touch upon Daria's question if that's okay about she votes in the Russian embassy. Daria, I have no idea why you would not trust Russian elections. That's quite odd. No, just kidding. But in Canada, we're using the internet
45:04
at the federal level anyways to modernize our election system. So in the 2015 election, this was the first time you could register yourself online. So get yourself on the voter list for voting day in order to be able to vote. So you would go online, you type in your name, your address, and it would put you on the election list.
45:23
So on polling day, you could be struck off the list very quickly. That was the first time it had been used in that way. Normally you'd have a bunch of paperwork to fill out, to mail in, photocopy of your ID, et cetera, which was quite laborious. But I know in terms of elections abroad, this may be a way in which people
45:41
can just register themselves and make themselves known to embassy authorities that they are living abroad and facilitate a faster balloting process. Okay, thanks, Thomas. What do you think about the individual verifiability? Yes, so, but maybe first, for the question if evolting is necessary,
46:00
if there is necessity for this, the answer is no, I believe. But I think what we should think is about weighing the benefits and the risk of this. And we've heard about the benefits, and we need to understand the risks. And about verifiability, the way we have it right now with a paper ballot,
46:22
it seems completely transparent, but I believe that this perceived transparency is a bit of the theoretical side. So while we could, in theory, go and recount those ballots in some places, nobody does it, right? So in the end, we actually trust the system, and as long as we have trusted,
46:41
well-developed system and procedures, this is fine, but there is still some trust in this. And this idea with having double measure for verifiability, that we have both a paper and some kind of electronic record, actually, this is a very good idea, and many experts agree that this kind of elections,
47:03
when people go to some polling place and essentially cast paper ballots, but those ballots are, for example, optically scanned or there is some similar procedure, this is actually the golden standard. When it's connected with some kind of statistical, it's called risk-limiting audit,
47:21
that some parts statistically randomly picked up, picked ballots are sampled and recounted in order to see whether there are some discrepancies between the announced result and what we see in the paper and this is actually a way to really improve the level of security we have right now. Although we were mostly talking about internet voting
47:42
which is different, right? And again, about this individual verifiability, this is one of the most mostly studied right now aspects, how to convince a voter or how to provide a mechanism for a voter that the voter can check and can make sure that his ballot, her ballot,
48:01
containing her or his intended choice is indeed cast. This is something we in the community work on a lot and we already have some nice solutions. I have admit, I don't think we have right now a perfect solution, but we have already quite interesting ones.
48:21
I was just wondering if I could quickly pose a question out there. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. I mean, obviously in Canada, we're in very close proximity to our neighbor to the south and what happened with their 2016 election seems to have scared some of the municipalities for they've dropped internet voting as an option for the next municipal election.
48:42
So Markham and which is one of the bedrock communities in Toronto won't be using it and neither will be Guelph. So I was just wondering if that plays a lot in the media for you guys and if that has been an issue for you as it has been for us. I mean, for us, it's a proximity, geography media issue but I was just wondering if it affected you guys at all.
49:01
No, certainly also plays a role here. Maybe, Henning, you can reflect right away on that. Yeah, I didn't get the question completely but I tried to answer it. If I don't, then just give me a sign. Got three aspects, the turnout. I just looked up the turnout for Estonia and it showed to me that, as you said,
49:23
the numbers went higher when the first online election were held in 2007, it went up from 58 to 60, almost 62% and it's even getting higher a little bit but if I compare that to, let's say, 1995, they even got 69% of the people voting so it hasn't reached the standard it had in 95.
49:43
And I think that the turnout overall is like a curve. It's going down, it's going up and you said it's always going down, pretty much that's what you were saying? I don't know, someone over there was saying. And if I compare that to the state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, for example, that's a state in Germany,
50:00
the turnout was in 2011, 51% and it went up to 61%, so 10% plus within five years without internet voting. So the people vote whether there is internet voting or where there is no internet voting. Ease of use, that's one big aspect. We have these postal absentee ballots we've talked about.
50:24
It's pretty good, I think it could be easier. We've also got the pre-election time where you can go to your town hall and cast your ballot. I think that's about three weeks or four weeks prior to the election day. You could improve that maybe, or I'm always open for more opportunities
50:42
for people that are disabled that have, I don't know, certain problems why they can't go cast their ballot. We have to improve that. Sure, we have to, but I think there are other ways than e-voting for improving that. And the other thing you were asking, I don't know where you are,
51:00
about the dual system with paper and without paper. Yeah, I think if there is, and that was what the federal constitutional court has also ruled or talked about, whether there are paper printouts of your vote when you go to the voting machine in your polling place,
51:21
and you also got a printout that was collected. If you do that, then you also have to recount it, and what's then the advantage of using online systems or voting machines if you have to recount all the papers as well? So either you use one way or the other way.
51:41
If you use both, then you can also do it just with paper and pen. So I don't see an advantage of using the dual system. It's just more expensive because you have to count it by people, and you also have to use systems that have to be obtained. So one thing that I have to just add to your comment
52:01
is like at the polling place, you said that nobody recounts what there is in polling places. That's not completely true there. Sometimes there is a recount, but there are also more than one person who is counting the votes. So there are several people always, they're observing what the other is doing,
52:21
what the others are doing, so there are more than two eyes counting. So in order to look on time, we have the possibility to take one last question. Here, I see one hand, but please keep it short. Yes, hi, I'm Birgit, and as a citizen, I'm interested in the possibilities of digital democracy and e-voting,
52:40
and as far as verification is concerned, I'm asking myself if the blockchain technology could be a solution because financial transactions are verified by blockchain technology. Okay, great to include that topic. Maybe we can just briefly touch upon that with the closing words by everyone.
53:01
Birgit? Yes, concerning blockchain, the ominous topic everybody's talking about for the last five years. Blockchain is used as one component in our system for guaranteeing the e-earn, or the total number of all votes
53:20
are being kept correctly, so to say. So it's used as one component without the system. But indeed, internet voting as a solution is heavily dependent on the context. It should never be forced to any place where it is not ready to be introduced.
53:43
So it is possible if you take into account the needs and necessities it provides with that. So it is possible. Thanks, Birgit. Stephanie, your last words. I will be very honest. I'm not an expert in anything blockchain technology related,
54:03
but she does, hi, Birgit, thank you for your question. You do bring up a good point about the sort of trust factor, which we've seen being brought up time and time again, which is why I asked my question about the US earlier, which is why in Canada we find the sort of excitement over iVoting
54:22
is more generally for places where we have a very small and controlled list of electors. So people living abroad, that is a very small, tight list of people who probably aren't gonna be very mobile on election day, so or military abroad or students,
54:40
those are people who would be on a set, fixed list. There's more enthusiasm to have those people being able to vote by internet than there is by the general public. Essentially, the higher the stakes, the lower the enthusiasm. The smaller the stakes, the higher the enthusiasm. So yeah, that's how we see it in our very vast, big country of Canada. Thanks, Stephanie, for the big experience from Canada.
55:04
Thomas. Yeah, so one word about the blockchain. I completely agree with what you said. I see it as a useful element in building a more trustworthy voting system. I don't see it as something that can replace custom solutions for iVoting.
55:24
And the last word, for me, we are at the exciting moment where we can already assure the iVoting to electronic voting to society. I believe we have a lot of things that we need to do, a lot of things that have to do
55:41
with explaining how it works, with solving further problems. But when I look at how electronic voting looked 10, 20 years ago and how it looks right now, we did huge advances in this. And I believe we are well positioned to believe that in five, 10 years, we will have a really convincing solution. And then we can meet again.
56:02
Thank you. Henning. Yeah, I'll make it short. I'm really looking forward for the digital future and digital fridge and digital everything, but I'm really looking forward to use pen and paper when voting. So thank you with all of that. So let's come back in 20 years time and discuss the topic again. And thanks with this, for everyone,
56:21
for this nice and interesting discussion. Yes, thank you very much.